4 Video Game Gimmicks Nobody Likes Anymore

#2. Everyone Hates Touchscreen Controllers (Especially Game Creators)

You would think with how screen-obsessed our modern culture has become, combining touchscreens with game consoles would result in pure gold. However, game design isn't an exact science: Sometimes "good thing" plus "good thing" equals "pure butt."

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment"Dinosaurs and fighting! How could it go wrong!?!"

Here's someone else who doesn't like touchscreens, besides developers: your child's doctor, since they can apparently stunt development in young kids. We're betting a large number of adult gamers aren't big fans of these screens either, since it's kind of difficult pretending to be a bad-ass space marine when your chubby fingers keep getting your digital self murderized.

But maybe we're thinking too small. All this technology might suck for games, but maybe there's another cool use for it. Like, for example ...

#1. All Those Interactive Shows Coming to Xbox Are Already Canceled

This year, Microsoft announced this hugely ambitious idea: a whole bunch of interactive TV shows for Xbox 360 and Xbox One! Including cool Halo shit by Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott! What could be better than combining the sweet couch-potatoeness of TV with the epic control a video game has to offer? Literally anything else, apparently, because a month after the service debuted, the shows were canceled.

Don't worry: Microsoft says the Halo movie with Spielberg is still coming out ... you know, like when they said the Halo movie with Peter Jackson was still coming out, back in 2005. But we're sure this time it's different. Anyway, we found a trailer:

So, why did Microsoft cancel the entire project so suddenly? It might have had something to do with the fact that the shows would have used Kinect to let you interact with them, and everyone hates Kinect -- to the point where taking it away doubled the Xbox One's sales. We hated it so much that the idea of interactive TV shows was murdered before it even started.

OK, so cameras are for weirdos, Wii remotes are a dead end, everyone hates touchscreens and Kinect ... what's next for the video game industry? Well, look at this headline for the latest interactive gaming technology:

They're right! Eye tracking is the next joystick -- as in something we stopped using because it didn't have enough buttons. As in, this is just a small step forward from the Kinect, that thing that everyone hated so damn much. In other words, start investing in arcade machines and air hockey tables, everyone.

Carolyn loves zombie and Silent Hill games. If you tweet at her she promises not to be too interactive.